DAVID WHEELER: A planogram for newlyweds

Now that I’ve been married for eight months, I might as well admit that things haven’t gone exactly as planned, particularly in the kitchen department.

No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get my wife to follow the helpful planogram I’ve created for our kitchen. Oh, she pleads ignorance and promises to do better, but I see through it all now.

If you’re not familiar with planograms, they’re all the rage in corporate America. Most retail chains use them to help underpaid shelf- stockers put merchandise where it belongs. Every item in its proper place is their motto.

So in order to help our household operate more efficiently, I spent one whole weekend setting up (what I thought) was a simple planogram for our kitchen. Coffee mugs on the top shelf, rounded plates on the second shelf, square and rectangular plates on the bottom shelf. Pots and pans are stored under the butcher’s block and everything else is placed neatly in its assigned drawer.

Easy as pie, right?

You can imagine my horror when I came downstairs one morning to find the juice glasses mixed with the coffee mugs. At first I thought it was a simple mistake, but upon further inspection, I found the butter knives mixed with the steak knives and the potato masher in an entirely different drawer than the plan called for.

I remained calm and chalked it up to an unintentional indiscretion on Sarah’s part. No one said marriage would be easy, I reminded myself. Besides, this is why cable shows like Bar Rescue and Militant Nazi Chef exist, so people can see the error of their ways and improve themselves.

Later that day, after a thorough retraining session, Sarah seemed to better understand how things worked.

“Yup. Mugs on top,” she said, “Got it.”

“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously,” I said trying not to sound whiny about the whole thing.

“Of course I am,” Sarah said, but it was hard for me to believe her since she all but patted my head like a kindergartner when she said it.

Warily, I decided to take a wait-and-see approach.

A mere two days later, my suspicions were confirmed when I found the same mugs in the same unauthorized spot. Minutes later I saw that the Tupperware had been put on the shelf where the steel pans belonged and I knew all was lost.

Obviously, something needed to be done. But what?

If this was a workplace, I’d issue a written reprimand, or at least a stern memo. I’d also have the weight of various policies and procedures behind me, not to mention the entire human resources department at my disposal.

But alas, this isn’t the workplace. This is marriage and there’s a whole different set of rules. One of the most important ones (after the whole monogamy thing) is you don’t reprimand your partner. Doing this only leads to a detailed listing of your own faults, none of which you agree with and many, frankly, that you consider your strengths.

But whatever. Let’s not open that can of worms. In fact, now that I think of it, who cares about all this organizational nonsense in the first place?

From now on, I’ll just leaves the dishes where I find them and let nature take its course. No more planograms and no more putting things away. Free-range kitchen organization, I call it.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

David Wheeler is a high school principal who lives in Brockton. Email him at misterwheeler@yahoo.com. His latest book, "Wherever I Am I Want To Be Somewhere Else," is available on Amazon.com. You can read his blog at dwwheeler.blogspot.com or read past columns.